New Delhi:
Three members of a Kolkata-based gang were arrested for allegedly cheating a 53-year-old businessman here of Rs 11 lakhs on the pretext of selling him a machine, which they claimed had magical properties to pull rice out of grains, police said on Thursday.
The gang duped people by selling them the “rice puller” machine, claiming that it was a device made up of radioactive material that possessed magical properties to attract rice grains towards it, police said.
They convinced the potential buyers by claiming that the device was very expensive in the international market as it was required in aeronautical science, according to the police.
Raj Kumar Saigal (36), Thakurdas Mondal (53) and Munna Lal (73) were arrested by the Delhi Police’s Crime Branch.
The gang of cheats indulged in selling and marketing the machine, which they claimed was certified by agencies like DRDO, ISRO and NASA, officials said.
Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch) Shibesh Singh said a case was registered on the complaint of Sanjay Gupta, a resident of Adarsh Nagar, who had alleged that he had been cheated of Rs 11 lakhs by a person named Munna Lal and his associates on the pretext of selling the “Rice Puller” machine.
“During investigation, on the basis of scrutiny of Call Detail Records of the suspected mobile numbers and a tip off, raids were conducted in Kolkata from where Raj Kumar Saigal and his associate Thakurdas Mondal were arrested on March 4,” he said.
After their arrest, Munna Lal fled from Kolkata to Faridabad from where he was arrested by the team following a raid on Wednesday, he added.
Elaborating on the modus operandi of the gang, the senior officer said the accused hired brokers who were tasked to find potential parties and lure them to purchase the machine.
The gang then sent videos specially prepared by them showing some experiments and specific characters of the “Rice Puller” machine and convinced the potential targets that the machine, worth thousands of crores, was a rare metal which was smuggled from Bangladesh, had special characters, and was used by agencies like NASA, ISRO and DRDO, he said.
The police said approximately Rs 6 lakhs, belonging to the accused, have been freezed. They have also recovered a number of national and international fake certificates apart from mobile phones and laptops from the gang members, they said.
